


the waiting game

by pageleaf



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Birthday Fluff, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Hair Braiding, Kittens, M/M, Multi, Pre-OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 20:58:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10048991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pageleaf/pseuds/pageleaf
Summary: Viktor is up to something, Yuri knows it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this started out because i noticed how viktor is very sweet with yuuri but he and yurio kind of snipe at each other as a form of affection. i wondered what it would be like for the two of them to be genuinely sweet with each other. throw in yuri's birthday, and the fact that march 1st (when i started writing this) is polyshipping day...and here we are.
> 
> happy (slightly belated) birthday, yuri plisetsky ♥
> 
> all russian endearments (all...two, lol) referenced from [this amazing post](http://ladyegcake.tumblr.com/post/154643367597/hi-im-so-sorry-to-bug-you-with-this-but-i-saw) the author of which i am forever grateful to!

Viktor is up to something, Yuri knows it.

He's been nice all day. Viktor and Yuri aren't _nice_ to each other, unless it's the fakey kind of nice Viktor gets when he's well and truly pissed off. So at first Yuri, understandably, decides that Viktor must be angry, and he thinks back over the events of the day searching for a reason, only to come up with nothing. Practice had gone really well the day before, and is continuing to go well today, and Yuuri and Viktor have both been in top form.

Even Yakov's been reluctantly happy. There's no _reason_ for Viktor to be angry.

"Yuri!" Viktor sings, skating to a stop in front of him and snowing him playfully with ice. "You've been quiet today."

"Ugh, tone down the smile, you're blinding me," Yuri grumbles, shoving Viktor away from him.

Viktor bites his lip around a grin and pulls Yuri into a hug, ruffling his hair, and Yuri squawks, flailing until he catches Viktor in the solar plexus with a stray elbow and can free himself.

"What the—fuck—" he wheezes, and skates off with purpose to where Yuuri is practicing spins.

"Oi, Katsudon," he barks, and Yuuri lifts his head with a tiny fond smile and ugh, Yuri must be getting indigestion because his stomach gives a weird little flutter. He ignores it and continues, "What did you do to your husband, he's being weird."

"Not my husband yet," Yuuri says on autopilot, just like always, but he's laughing. "How's he being weird?"

"Too— _nice_ ," Yuri says, with disgust.

"He's always nice," Yuuri says, but he takes one look at Yuri's disbelieving expression and starts giggling.

"Not to me," Yuri says, "which I am perfectly fine with, thank you. So. What did you do to him?"

Yuuri puts a hand on his hip and shrugs. "What makes you think I did anything?"

Yuri eyes Viktor where he is across the rink, draping himself over Mila's shoulder and grinning ear-to-ear. "Look at him," he says, "he's practically glowing. No way that's not your fault."

"Yuri," Yuuri says, sounding embarrassed but delighted, "are you asking me if this is a sex thing?"

"What—no!" Yuri splutters, but yes, actually, that's exactly what he was asking. "I mean...is it?"

Yuuri glows at him like his asshole husband—fiancé, whatever—and says, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

 

It isn't a sex thing. Yuri's like, 90% sure. In fact, he's pretty sure it's a _him_ thing.

He starts suspecting it when he realizes that Viktor's being bubbly and fucking annoying with everyone, but _especially_ bad around him.

"Yuuuura," Viktor says at the end of practice, slinging an arm around Yuri's shoulders. "Walk home with us, okay?"

"Ugh, why," Yuri says, ducking out from beneath Viktor's grasp.

Viktor pouts. "Yuri," he says, mock-seriously. Except...it doesn't actually sound that mocking, and Yuri straightens a little. "Did you think I forgot?"

"Forgot what?" Yuri asks, and Viktor rolls his eyes.

"Yuuri, miliy!" Viktor calls, and Yuuri looks up from where he's packing up his duffel.

"Coming!" he shouts back, and jogs over. "So did you pick a place for dinner?" He's asking Yuri; Yuri is beyond confused, at this point.

"Okay," he says flatly. "Explain."

Yuuri blings. "Yurio," he says. "It's your birthday."

Oh. _Oh_.

"Ah," Yuri says weakly. "I forgot."

"How—" Yuuri says, and Viktor is bending over, laughing.

"Shut up!" Yuri says, kicking Viktor in the leg until he stumbles, off-balance, still laughing.

"Oh, Yurochka," he says, wiping a tear from his eye (Yuri rolls his eyes heavily), "you really are the most dedicated of us all. Even I never forgot my birthday, and I barely even celebrate it."

Yuri fidgets, flustered. "I've just been busy, okay? Stop making a big deal out of it!"

"Oh?" Viktor says, laughter dying and immediately replaced by the smugly superior smile Yuri is used to. "So you _don't_ want your present, then?"

Yuri freezes. "I didn't...say..."

Now Yuuri and Viktor are both laughing at him, and he scowls. "Fine, whatever! I don't want to go out, anyway."

"You want me to cook?" Yuuri asks, and Yuri looks down at his feet.

"I mean, I guess. If you wanted to."

Viktor grins as if this had been his plan all along, and grabs Yuri and Yuuri's hands to pull them along home.

 

Yuuri cooks, and Viktor and Yuri do the dishes (Viktor washes, while Yuri dries and barely even complains).

"I thought you had a present for me," Yuri says when they're done, because it seems like the thing to say. In reality, he couldn't care less; he's happy enough, here in the comfortable silence of Viktor and Yuuri's kitchen. Happy in a way that makes him settled and unsettled at once. He doesn't analyze it too much.

"It's a little delayed," Viktor says mournfully. "We might have to postpone it for tomorrow."

"So," Yuri draws out, half teasing, half...not. "Can I go, then?"

Viktor blinks at him, startled out of his character. "I mean," he says. "If you want?"

It's that, the hesitation and faint disappointment coloring his voice that makes Yuri say, "Eh. I have nothing better to do, I guess."

Yuuri pokes his head back into the kitchen and asks them to bring snacks. "I'm putting on a movie," he says. As Yuri follows Viktor into the living room, a bowl of popcorn cradled in the crook of his arm, he feels warmth settle into his limbs.

The movie is silly, a mostly plotless action-y romp, because none of them are in the mood for anything serious. Yuri stops paying attention fifteen minutes in, when Yuuri wraps his arm around his shoulders and tugs him in.

He thinks about protesting, but he's a little chilly, and, well. Yuuri's warm.

Thirty minutes in, and Viktor reaches out a hand. "Your hair's getting long," he says, picking up a strand and holding it between his fingers.

Yuri shrugs. "Yours was longer."

"Not by much," Viktor says, and smiles at him. It's softer and realer than earlier today, but no less sweet. Yuri doesn't know what to make of it. "Can I..." Viktor trails off, gesturing vaguely with his hand, and Yuri's saying "Sure, I guess," before he even knows it.

Yuuri moves his arm and Yuri tries not to shiver, dropping to the floor to lean back against Viktor's shins. "Yuuri," Viktor says, voice still pitched in that soft, low undertone, "can you get me a comb and a hair tie?"

The couch shifts behind him, but Yuri only half-notices, too distracted by the way Viktor's carding his fingers gently through his hair. He notices when Yuuri comes back though, because Viktor opens his legs and Yuri's back is suddenly against the couch, Viktor's knees bracketing him on either side. He feels hemmed in, safe. It's...nice.

"Ouch," he says, when Viktor combs through the first tangle, even though it doesn't hurt. Just because.

Viktor huffs out an amused breath, like he knows Yuri's just being a shit.

"He does this for me after every competition," Yuuri says from the other end of the couch. Yuri wonders if he turned the volume on the TV down, because everything sounds a little distant.

"Yuuri's hair isn't long enough to do much with, though," Viktor muses.

"Yet," Yuuri retorts, and Viktor laughs.

He works through the tangles for another few minutes, until he can run his fingers through the pale sheet of Yuuri's hair easily, without them snagging on anything. "Yours, though," he says, "yours is long enough to braid." He separates Yuri's hair cleanly into three parts, fingers practiced but a little hesitant, like this is something he used to do a lot but hasn't for some time.

As if reading Yuri's mind, Viktor says, "I missed this. I used to braid my own hair every day."

"You could grow it out again," Yuri says drowsily, leaning into Viktor's hands.

Viktor hums. "Maybe."

He starts braiding, loose enough to be comfortable, tight enough to be secure. Yuri's asleep before he ties the end off.

He jolts awake when someone moves him.

"Shh, koten'ka," someone—Viktor—murmurs, tucking the ends of a blanket around him. "You fell asleep."

Yuri forces his heavy eyelids open. The living room is dark, the TV looking like it's been off for a while. There's light coming from the kitchen, along with the faint sound of a kettle going.

"Want some tea?" Viktor asks.

Yuri grumbles and turns over to face the back of the couch, shutting his eyes again.

Viktor laughs from behind him, soft and warming Yuri all the way through. "I see how it is," he says. "Good night, Yura," he says, and presses a kiss to Yuri's temple.

 

Yuri wakes up to little paws on his chest.

"Muh?" he says, half-asleep, and he hears a stifled giggle from his right. "What—"

He opens his eyes, and a little pink nose stares back at him.

"No way," he breathes, sitting upright.

The kitten makes a tiny noise and almost falls to his lap, but Yuri catches it automatically. "You guys—"

"Your present!" Yuuri says with an excited grin, and Yuri finds his face smiling back without his permission. _Goddamnit_ , he thinks, but he's not awake enough to resist Yuuri and Viktor smiling in his face and a fucking kitten on his chest.

"A kitten for a kitten," Viktor says with a shit-eating grin, and Yuri scowls half-heartedly, still cradling the kitten to his chest. "We thought you could name her."

"I'm not awake enough for this," Yuri says helplessly, echoing his earlier thoughts, and they laugh, clearly thinking he's talking about the naming.

"It'll keep," Viktor says. "Happy birthday, Yura."

He reaches out and ruffles Yuri's hair again, and Yuri thinks of the previous night. Of Viktor kissing him, when he thought Yuri was asleep. He could say something, he thinks, stroking over the kitten's fur with his thumbs. Right now, when they're all here and smiling and happy. It's the best chance he's gotten so far.

But then Yuuri stiffens and runs off to the kitchen, shouting something about breakfast and burning, and the moment passes.

Oh well. It'll keep.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, you can find me on tumblr as pageleaf, or twitter as @peakcaps :)


End file.
